Page 92 of Fire Peak

Her voice rose in panic, and he wondered if she’d gotten another message from the kidnappers.

“Nick…I wish things could have been different. I’m sorry. Goodbye.”

With a note of finality, she ended the call.

His heart pounded as he raced out of the store. He could read between the lines of what she was saying. Whatever they wanted her to do, whatever she’d agreed to do, was against the law. She was making that choice because of Hailey.

His heart seemed to expand inside his chest. Charlie was protecting his daughter. Just as she’d tried to protect her father for years, and all the nonprofits and other organizations she’d funded.

All this time, part of him had held onto a tiny bit of judgment about her. Charlie the Outlaw, skirting laws, living on the edge. He’d been drawn to her anyway. Fallen for her. Admired her.

But that wasn’t it, he saw now. She wasn’t so much a law-flouter as a justice-seeker, someone who tried to balance the scales and stand up for people who couldn’t do it themselves.

He loved her. All of her. And he didn’t want her to sacrifice her future—or their future together—if he could possibly help it.

The only thing he could do about it was find Hailey and get her away from Vasily. Then he’d grab Charlie and tell her how he felt. No holding back. No secrecy, no cards hidden, just him and his heart and his feelings.

38

Hailey kicked Elias, who still lay curled on the floor of the camper. He’d been unconscious ever since fur-coat man had deposited her in this nasty trailer. It smelled like ass in here. He’d barely even bothered to tie her up, other than her hands behind her back, which she found vaguely insulting. Did he think she was incapable of escaping while he talked on his big-ass phone?

He was mostly talking in some foreign language, but sometimes he spoke English. She’d put together enough to realize he was talking to Charlie. She was at Fire Peak Lodge, and so were the other people on the phone. He wanted Charlie to help them do something.

She kept hearing the word “fire,” but that could just mean Fire Peak.

Elias stirred and moaned.

“Elias.” She stayed in position, in case the man checked on her through the window. “Wake up,” she hissed. “Come on, we have to do something. We have to get out of here.”

His eyes opened, and a moment later he sat up and put a hand to the back of his head. “Ow.”

“Yeah. Sorry. Eric said that bad man knocked you out with a bat.”

“Who?”

“He’s outside. He’s really weird. They’re trying to make Charlie do something, that’s why he has us.”

She passed him the Crystal Geyser water bottle the man had left for them. Elias took a long swallow. It seemed to make him more alert. He scanned the interior of their little jail.

“This is Solomon’s camper.”

“You know where we are?” That was good news. At a certain point the man had tied a smelly bandanna around her eyes so she couldn’t see where they were going. Not that it would have made a difference. She didn’t know these woods the way Elias did.

“Sure. It’s near his mining claim. Is he here too?”

“I haven’t seen anyone else. Just the kidnapper man. Listen. Don’t move. He thinks you’re out cold. I’ve been looking around and I think we can squeeze out that window.” The camper had the kind of half-windows that slid down from the top. With a roll of her eyeballs, she indicated the one at the back of the trailer, where the bed was located. “I can’t move because he keeps checking on me. But I figured if we can make a dummy, we can fool him. But you have to do it.”

“A dummy?”

She knew that word triggered him. The Chilkoots had considered him stupid, but he was just on the spectrum and they didn’t understand.

“Like a fake person. Pile up some blankets and make it look like me. These windows are so dirty he probably can’t make out any details.”

Amazingly, Elias seemed to think that was a good idea. He crawled across the camper—eww—and gathered enough blankets to form into the shape of a person. Or at least a small one, like her.

But the sound of the man’s voice growing louder had her hissing at him to get back down.

Shit, he was coming back.

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